One sweet gig

By now you've heard about the English DJ who phoned the hospital where Kate Middleton has been holed-up, telling hospital staff she was "HRH da Queen".  The staff bought it and told the impostor everything.  So why didn't they quiz "da Queen" like my bank quizzes me every time I call?...."What was your mother's maiden name?"...."What was the name of your first elementary school?"...."What was your high school mascot?"  Looks to me like this could have been a fairly simple hoax to foil.  

OK, now about that sweet gig:  Do any of you watch Anthony Bourdain on the Travel Channel?  He (claims to be) a chef who now travels the world visiting great (sometimes) places, seeing all the off-the-beaten-path sites, and eating exotic local cuisine.  How do people land these really cool jobs?  

Now I'll admit, it's probably great fun....for a while.  After living out of a suitcase for months on end I'm sure you can get burned out pretty fast.  Still, I'd do it in a heartbeat.  A couple days ago Anthony was in Paris getting a guided tour from a food critic friend.  They bypassed the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre and instead visited all the little markets on the side streets, drank vino and people watched from little sidewalk bistros, and ate at those quaint little restaurants off narrow alleyways that have 3 tables total.

My only hesitation would be the food itself.  He's always served something weird.  "Today, just for you Monsieur....Roquefort crabgrass and beet salad, roasted Bunion of Roadkill, and semi-fermented Brussels sprouts."  And of course he just woofs it right down cooing "Mmmmmm....this is just woooonderful."

I wish I had that wide a taste palate.  I really do.  All I'd be able to do is push the food around the plate and smile while off-camera digging into my backpack for some fake-cheese-in-a-can and some crackers.  I'm sorry, but if I can't identify it, I don't eat it.

I guess that's what's holding back my Travel Channel TV career.  :(  *Stella...I coulda been a contenda*

S

My downsizing saga, Pt. 2

So I left off with our home sold and moving day about a month away.  Where to live?  It turns out the place we spent a lot of our weekend time, The Shops at Legacy, a super popular shopping/entertainment district, was less than a mile from where K worked, and was just a block away from the Dallas North Tollway which was a straight shot to my work.  

Over an eight-block-long stretch in The Shops there are about 25 restaurants, several clubs, a theater, and more.  And best of all they had lots of adjacent apartments to choose from.  We found a 2 bed/2 bath just a block away that seemed nice enough and was less than half what our home cost per month.  Perfect! We were soon having so much fun we quickly put building another (smaller) home on the back burner.

But before we could move we had to face reality....much of our stuff wasn't coming with us.  First off, everything upstairs had to find a new home.  We gave some of it to our friends and family, sold some on Craig's List, and put the rest in a moving (garage) sale.

Clothes....Jeez....where'd all that stuff come from?  I had 55 casual shirts.  K asked me how many of them I had worn in the past 6 months?  Twenty.  That left 35 that went to charity.  Same with shoes.  Same with lots of old pants/jeans that...ahem...shrunk in the dryer.

I thought the hardest thing for me to part with would be the 500 hardcover volumes I'd collected over the years.  K asked me if I ever went back and re-read any of them?  Ummm....no.  That meant I really had 500 dusty door stops.  Some were given to friends and family, some were sold via Craig's List and in the moving sale, and the rest were sacrificed to Half Price Books.  I kept a few that were signed by the authors or given to me by friends, but the rest are now being enjoyed by others.  Turns out they weren't hard to part with at all.  Now I read Kindle books on my tablet.

Fortunately as things turned out we didn't have any heirloom furniture.  We had very good quality stuff, but it had no sentimental value.  We kept what we needed and no more.  Our HUGE dining table w/ 2 leaves, 6 chairs, and a sideboard was replaced by this...

....and it works for us just fine.

My GIANT oak roll top desk was eventually replaced by this much smaller one....

....and my tall oak file cabinet was condensed into this....

....which fits nicely in the closet.

Every nook and cranny is used for storage.  The backside of most doors has been put to use.... 

In the spring, winter coats, hats, gloves, sweaters, etc are put into plastic boxes and stored under the bed and on the top shelf of closets and are replaced by summer shorts and T-shirts that had been put away the previous fall....

The apartment installed one shelf over the washer/dryer, but I added 2 more....

Need a rod to hang up clothes as they come out of the dryer?  Improvise....

The Container Store became my best friend!

Unless you have a bunch of heirlooms or are auditioning for a roll on Hoarders, it really isn't that hard to downsize.  In fact, it wasn't long before we found that second apartment bedroom turning into a catch-all room, tempting us all over again to collect more stuff we didn't need.  The solution....downsize once more.  

After three years in our first apartment we moved again into another newer, nicer, but even smaller one bedroom apartment.  

We're now down to 850 sq ft and loving it.

The grounds are beautiful with a pool, gym, and 3 courtyards that I don't have to maintain!  And if anything needs fixing (very rare) I just fire off an email to maintenance.  They even change light bulbs!

Our downsizing adventure has been very worthwhile, the disadvantages being few and far between.  "Apartment grade" is a far cry from "custom home", but if you're willing to check your ego at the door, it's a pretty sweet ride.  

Another home for us some day?  If I could replicate my carefree downsized/renter's lifestyle and still give my bride another (mini) mansion she could call hers, I'd be willing.  Never say never.  :)

S

My downsizing saga, Pt. 1

I've been a custom home builder for nearly 40 years.  Inflation, zoning laws, and buyer's tastes being what they are, most of the homes I build today are very large and cost well over $1M (just the kitchen appliances cost more than my first home) and look something like this:

(Sorry for the small photos.  Any larger and they lost sharpness.)

Maybe that's why big swanky houses hold no special allure for me....I see them every day.  *yawn*  For myself I built a more modest-sized home....3,147 sq feet, two-story, corner lot, study, 24' x 36' Great Room, etc.  (I know...what was I thinking?)  When I met K and first brought her to my home her jaw hit the floor when she walked in.  To me it was just run-of-the-mill, but to her it was "a mansion".  She loved it at the same time I was tiring of it.  That was in 2006.  By 2007 the economic outlook was getting scary.  By 2008 it was obvious to me it would be "man-the-lifeboat" time very soon.  I could see a little pro-active strategic planning was in order.

In retrospect I'm the last person who should own a home.  I HATE yard work, but with a next-door neighbor who was Mr. Yard-of-the-Month I had to put forth at least some effort.  To me a yard is just a place for the dog to crap.  I don't entertain much at home, and never have any overnight company. 

I DETEST doing maintenance of any kind, but of course I do it (grudgingly)....I want things to look good and work right.  I flip the switch and expect things to come on.  Unfortunately things don't always work like that and my home was by then at the age where maintenance / repair was becoming a regular occurrence.

My kids were long since grown, educated, married, and on someone else's payroll.  I had bedrooms....an entire upstairs even, unused.  When is a 24 x 36 foot Great Room too big?  When you have to wave your arms and yell to get your mate's attention.  And besides, when you're in bed asleep you can't tell if your bedroom is 13 x 13 or 23 x 23.  The thought of paying for all that unused space, and paying taxes on it, and insurance, and utilities, etc, was really bugging me.

I knew it was going to break my new bride's heart to give up her "mansion", but she deferred to me (thank you Sweetie!) and let me put it on the market.  My timing was fortunate....values were still up there and financing hadn't yet seized up.  We sold it before the economy "hit the fan" and did well.

Since K had been driving 50 miles round trip in heavy traffic daily to work I told her we'd rent a 2 bed, 2 bath apartment somewhere closer to her work for a while and we could address another, smaller home later.  My plan was moving forward.  

That's where I'll leave the story for now.  Part 2 tomorrow.

S

Am I ahead of my time or just "out there"?

Did you hear about the two snails that mugged a turtle?  During the police investigation when they asked the turtle what happened he said, "Gee officers, I dunno.  It all happened so fast...."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This must be a slow news day.  Every news network in the world I think has rushed at least one reporter to London to give us a puke-by-puke account of how Kate Middleton's pregnancy is going.  This is just the classic definition of Too Much Information.   I actually feel kinda guilty for not caring.   Maybe I'll send her one of those big, shiny helium balloons in a few months, how's that?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I recently read an article in the paper about a couple in North Carolina who decided their big 3,000+ sq ft home was more trouble than it was worth.  They downsized "to one that is half that size, cutting their property taxes in half and their aggravation even more."  Been there, done that.

I think I'm more appreciative of not having all the responsibilities a big house comes with than K is.  When we met / married K called my house "a mansion".  Hardly, but comparatively speaking to her it may have been.  All I saw was a lawn that needed maintaining, never ending painting, fixing, updating, etc.  Every storm brought with it a fear of having to possibly deal with insurance adjusters and tree trimmers.  (I damn sure wasn't climbing up there!)

After renting for four years now the idea of building a small house, very small, is slowing creeping back into my mind.  But instead of thinking up all the "things" I could build in, I think about how bullet-proof I could make it, up to and including using those lifetime light bulbs. 

This would work

Or maybe even something more whimsical

The big problem is finding a city that would allow me to build such a small house.  Around here they're all still hung up on zoning for BIG houses.  That leaves building out in the country where they have no zoning restrictions, which has NO appeal to me at all.  I like being a 5-minute-drive away from everything I could possibly want.  I'd actually prefer to be a 5-minute walk away.  I wish the rest of my area would catch up with me and those folks in North Carolina.

S

The good, the bad, and the just plain odd...

The Perot Museum of Science and Nature opened this weekend in downtown Dallas.  We didn't go see it on opening weekend because of the expected crowd.  While most will go to see the exhibits inside, I'll be content to just sit outside and admire the structure...

We'll have to let the crowds thin out some before we trek down there.

I think this is so cool looking.  I wonder if the builder asked the architect half way through the project, "Where's the escalator?", and he replied, "Gee, I dunno.....just strap it there to the outside somewhere."  Haha!

Most of the couple hundred million dollar price tag was covered by Ross Perot's kids, the museum being a tribute to their dad.  (They probably brown-bagged it for a week and donated their lunch money.)  That's Daddy Ross third from the left.

He's never been photographed wearing anything besides a dark suit, white dress shirt and tie.  For once I'd love to see him wear something else, like maybe a Hawaiian print shirt or some sweats.

The museum will fit in well with some of Dallas' other "unusual" architectural features....

As someone who appreciates eclectic architecture there is one other building that has always intrigued me that I wish was here....

The "Twisted Torso" in Malmo, Sweden.  I wonder which came first, this or the Rubik's Cube?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I saw in the news this morning that more banks are agreeing to pay fines to the Gubment for their wrongdoing and more bankers are under investigation for various illegal acts, too.  But here's what gets me:  Instead of being banished to some far-off place in disgrace, these crooks just leave the firm where they were caught and move down the street to another bank and given an even better position and more money.  These banks just play musical chairs with their top felons.  Whoever said "crime doesn't pay" obviously wasn't a banker.

Another Monday.  Let the games begin.  ;)

S

This one is for you Bug...

Yes, over the past few days I've written posts that made fun of women and their appetite for vegetables as well as PMS.  In case anyone hasn't noticed, I've never been accused of being politically correct.  Irreverent, yes, but not politically correct.  Please don't mistake my oddball sense of humor for sexism.

I have three daughters, all with a steel-like strength of character.  One, Andrea, as well as my wife, are US Navy veterans.  While Andrea is recruiting-poster beautiful, she was a plane captain on CH-46 helicopters and an "aviation warfare specialist".  Kristan has her Masters in Accounting degree and Erica is an elementary school teacher.  Besides that, both the latter two have 2 kids each, which in my mind makes them tougher that Rambo ever could be. They learned from me to never believe there is anything (well, except maybe "peeing" their name in the snow) they can't do.  (Oops, there's that oddball sense of humor again!)

I voted for a woman for Governor (in the primaries) back in 1971 (?).  I've also voted for women for city council, mayor, state legislator, and senator.  Understand, I didn't vote for any of them because they were women, but because I agreed with [most of] what they said they believed in.  The same would apply for a candidate who was Black, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish, WASP, or anything else.  

I hope I never offend anyone with my goofy antics, but if I am ever on that cusp in your mind, please remember what I've written here.  There will never be any intentional disrespect from my pen.  I'm truly an equal opportunity offender.  ;)

We good?

S

You've gotta stay on top of these things....

I see the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association met this weekend and approved several revisions to their diagnostic manual.  Beginning in May when the new manual is published people with "abnormally bad and frequent temper tantrums will be given a scientific-sounding diagnosis called DMDD."  

What was wrong with "PMS"?  How is going from a three-letter acronym to a four-letter acronym considered progress?

Which reminds me of a true story from back in my airshow marshalling days.  For about 20 years my hobby was volunteering at airshows across the country, working with a team of marshallers who were responsible for all the show aircraft moving in and out of the parking ramp.  It was somewhat similar to the tongue-in-cheek definition of combat:  "Hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror."

At one event a few guys from Colorado approached us and asked if we would teach them how to marshall so they could go back and work at some of the smaller airshows in their area.  They were nice guys and we said we would be happy to.  They said they were going to call themselves the "Precision Marshalling Squadron".

In the course of conversation they mentioned they were going to put together some sort of uniform with their group name across the back and initials on their caps...."PMS".   Ummm....guys...

S